2024-10-04
NASA blows chunks (of cash), Musk puffs, WordPress lawsuit, FAA say No(vember). Port strike ends as TP runs out, 9 years for looking behind the curtain, Chagos given over (.io shit what now?)
Worthy
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SLS is still a national disgrace
I have an unpublishable blog post documenting all the times, in four years at NASA JPL, I personally was punished for making the cardinal error of committing to writing ways I had found to save significant sums of money or time in the schedule. It’s a subjective observation but at the same time, the entire org was unable to retain young ambitious talent, unable to remove underperformers, and as the record shows, unable to deliver missions remotely on time and budget. It seems crazy that any organization would be so aggressively disinterested in improving productivity, or even slowing its decline, but it is a common failure mode particularly of large bureaucratic organizations. In private industry, they eventually go bankrupt but the government can always print more money.
etc
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The economic case for mass immigration is COLLAPSING
the OBR quietly notes that mass immigration is contributing to what is known as ‘capital dilution’, or what I call ‘the population trap’. This is what happens when populations expand so quickly that the sheer scale and speed of this population change exceeds the capacity of the state to provide its own citizens with functioning public services —such as a functioning NHS and education system— as well as things like affordable and available housing and safe neighbourhoods. Mass immigration, in short, is managed decline because it’s putting enormous pressure on a state that is already struggling to provide public services for its existing population. This is what the Canadians, the Swedes, and many others are now finally realising —that the sheer scale of demographic change over the last twenty years or so has been so great that the state is now simply unable to perform its most basic functions. And this is what is now happening in the UK —even if much of the elite class ignore it.
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(Aug 8 2024) Maui Fire Update One Year Later: Lahaina Rebuild in Focus
According to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, 1,399 homes need rebuilding. As the community pursues rebuilding efforts, county officials have only approved a fraction of the disaster recovery building permits submitted by homeowners or their representatives. To illustrate the sluggishness of this process, it is worth noting that the first residential property is currently only in the rough-framing phase, which occurs during the early stages of reconstruction. However, there has been progress on other lots with laying utility lines and foundations.
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Biggest solar flare since 2017 erupts from sun and Earth is in the firing line
NC/TN Floods / Helene
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Helicopter pilot threatened with arrest after flying rescue missions in flood-ravaged NC
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Nearly all homes in counties hardest hit by Helene lack flood insurance
- generally not a feature in the life of mountain communities; much to the dismay of those who build in the river valleys.
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says military aid is held up waiting for governor to approve
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FAA doesn't have a linkable version, but its in their system link to image of NOTAM
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There is going to be a legitimate question of whether there is any economic purpose building new roads and bridges back to former town sites that are now entirely destroyed, and were often already depopulating.
Horseshit
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This 28-Year-Old Nurse's Solution to Gun Violence Has Gone Viral
Ryann Parrish (@ryannpdatsme), a 28-year-old from Nashville, Tennessee, recently posted a now-viral TikTok video explaining her solution to gun violence. The video has been viewed nearly 13 million times, received nearly 3 million likes, and has over 55,000 comments. "Call me radical, but I think the guns should start to have insurance policies," Ryann says in the TikTok. "If I gotta insure my Honda Civic, you need to insure your gun."
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AI-powered cameras mounted on cars and trucks, initially designed to capture license plates, but which are now photographing political lawn signs outside private homes, individuals wearing T-shirts with text, and vehicles displaying pro-abortion bumper stickers—all while recording the precise locations of these observations. Newly obtained data reviewed by WIRED shows how a tool originally intended for traffic enforcement has evolved into a system capable of monitoring speech protected by the US Constitution.
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Can Scientists Save the World from an Apocalyptic Asteroid Strike?
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Factory Workers Are Dying Because Machines Aren't Being Turned Off
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Why Owning (and Buying) a Florida Condo Has ‘Turned Into a Nightmare’ - The New York Times
Suddenly, the Konetzes found themselves facing a $224,000 bill — their share of a special assessment to renovate and repair their 36-year-old building. Unable to secure a loan or sell the unit, the couple now fear bankruptcy. The deadline for the required building inspections is Dec. 31, 2024. Proponents of the legislation say it’s necessary to prevent another tragedy, since many of these buildings have avoided funding structural repairs for decades. But for the people living in them — many of them retirees or second-home owners — the dream of living in Florida has curdled into a financial nightmare.
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astonishing indictment of our welfare policies
A single mother in DC can make no gains, financially, as her earnings rise from $11,000 to $65,000 because benefits like food stamps & Medicaid phase in/out as her income rises.
celebrity gossip
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Abuse Claims Add to Telegram C.E.O. Pavel Durov’s Legal Troubles - The New York Times
The mother of three children with Pavel Durov has poked holes in the Russian tech titan’s carefully managed image through a criminal complaint and her account of their opulent lifestyle.
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For Michael Jordan, it got personal, and now NASCAR could be forever changed
Rank Propaganda / Thought Policing / World Disordering
Musk
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Musk celebrates winning lawsuit over Tesla FSD claims with embarrassing defense
By definition, “puffery” refers to exaggerated or false praise. It’s also a legal defense used by defendants in cases of false advertising or misleading statements. The defendants argue that the statements can’t be taken seriously because they were “mere puff.” That’s precisely the defense that Tesla and Elon Musk’s lawyers have taken to defend against a shareholder’s lawsuit over Musk’s alleged misleading statements regarding Tesla’s self-driving effort.
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Musk funded right-wing political non-profit years before he endorsed Trump
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42% of daily X users dislike it-losing the block feature won't help
Electric / Self Driving cars
Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts
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Employers Say Students Need AI Skills. What If Students Don't Want Them?
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Student loan forgiveness plan can move forward, federal judge allows
The development stems from a lawsuit against the aid package brought by seven GOP-led states. The states — Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Missouri, North Dakota and Ohio — said the U.S. Department of Education’s new debt cancellation effort is illegal. However, Hall found that Georgia lacked standing to sue against the relief plan, and could not be the venue for the case. The judge directed the case to be transferred to Missouri, since the states claim Biden’s plan would most harm student loan servicer Mohela, or the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority.
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Day 1 CPT: Schools Make Millions Offering Degrees Doubling As Work Visas - Bloomberg
Harrisburg is one of a few dozen little-known US schools offering a specialized graduate program that functions, essentially, as a two-year work visa in disguise. By exploiting a federal on-the-job-training rule, people from India, China and elsewhere can work full time while completing most classes online and showing up in person only a few times a year.
Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising
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Why Your Favorite Apps Are Becoming All-in-One Platforms
Apps are becoming super apps to keep you from wandering off and using someone else's platform. Companies want you to spend all your time with them—listening, watching, learning, working—without ever clicking away. It's a bit like inviting you over for coffee but then offering you cake, a foot massage, and a jazz performance until you forget why you came in the first place. You're not just there for coffee anymore, you're there for everything.
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Why my apps will soon be gone from the Google Play Store | Hacker News
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WP Engine Sues Automattic and WordPress Co-Founder Matt Mullenweg
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Links to suit as well HN comments
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Latest in WordPress war: Automattic says it wanted 8% cut of WP Engine revenue
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Warning: Older Galaxy phones getting bricked by new Samsung update
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Ring just doubled price of alarm monitoring service for grandfathered customers
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Patent troll Sable pays up, dedicates all its patents to the public
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Dismantling Google is a terrible idea
Antitrust intervention may have sped the firm’s decline. That is why it is important for regulators to look forward as much as back. If Google is left unchecked, the danger is that its incumbent position impedes competition. With its huge proprietary datasets, Google may one day build better ai tools than its rivals. Buoyed by its monopoly profits, it offers its current AI tools free, unlike newer competitors which must charge subscriptions to help cover their costs. If Google were indeed blocking future rivals, then limiting its ability to use its search engine to distribute its ai products might stop it from exploiting one monopoly to acquire another. A breakup, however politically appealing it may be to some, is not the answer.
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Four expensive cards imploded Magic: The Gathering's most popular format
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Future of .io domains uncertain as UK hands over Chagos islands
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John Deere accused of 'excluding' right-to-repair language in its manuals
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All of Spielberg's Indiana Jones Movies Removed from Disney+ Worldwide
TechSuck / Geek Bait
AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World
Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO
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Feds stick with late November approval for next SpaceX Starship launch
“We are not issuing launch authorization for a launch to occur in the next two weeks — it’s not happening,” an FAA spokesman said Tuesday afternoon. “Late November is still our target date.”
Crypto con games
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Mystery creator of Bitcoin identified, new HBO documentary claims
The documentary is the latest work of Emmy-nominated Cullen Hoback, who drew critical acclaim for his series “Q: Into the Storm” that exposed the authors of the QAnon conspiracy theory. The big reveal is set to air next Wednesday at 2 a.m. CET (Tuesday at 9 p.m. EST).
Economicon / Business / Finance
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California's $20 Fast Food Minimum Wage Sees No Job Loss, Slight Price Hikes
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There were numerous reports of shops shutting down when the law went into effect
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Sectoral Wage-Setting in California – Institute for Research on Labor and Employment
Our restaurant wage data come from 35,680 job posts on Glassdoor, an internet job site. We obtained price data by scraping menus from 1,585 California restaurants and 1,694 restaurants in states without a minimum wage increase since 2009. We find that the policy increased average hourly pay by a remarkable 18 percent, and yet it did not reduce employment. The policy increased prices about 3.7 percent, or about 15 cents on a $4 hamburger (on a one-time basis), contrary to industry claims of larger increases. About 62 percent of the increased costs were passed on to consumers in higher prices, suggesting that restaurant profit margins, which were above competitive levels before the policy, absorbed a substantial share of the cost increase.
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Cerebras - maker of the world's largest AI chips - is filing for an IPO.
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Supply chain stress building price on items like bananas will rise significantly
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People are panic-buying toilet paper because of the port strike. There is no need for that
My sister's been driving through STL trying to find some toilet paper for her family, and... it's out everywhere.
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Port strike ends as workers agree tentative deal on wages and contract extension
Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making
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Federal prosecutors still can’t get into Eric Adams’ cellphone - The Verge
When Adams turned in his personal cellphone the following day, charging documents say, he said he had changed the password a day prior — after learning about the investigation — and couldn’t remember it. Adams told investigators he changed the password “to prevent members of his staff from inadvertently or intentionally deleting the contents of his phone,” the indictment alleges.
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Feds say there's no money left for hurricanes after FEMA spent $640M on migrants
Harris / Democrats
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Harris consoles those devastated by Helene in Georgia — a contrast with Trump's visit
The Democratic nominee's approach offered a stark contrast to the overtly political posture Donald Trump took during his visit to Valdosta, Georgia earlier this week, when he accused President Joe Biden and his administration for failing to deliver the aid needed by the community. It's a sentiment even the state's Republican governor did not share, and during her visit on Wednesday, Harris praised Gov. Brian Kemp for his leadership.
Trump / Right / Jan6
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In a filing Wednesday afternoon requesting Florida District Judge Aileen Cannon officially designate Routh's case as "complex," prosecutors revealed new details about the scope of evidence they've amassed as they try to further gain insight into Routh's actions leading up to his suspected attempt to kill Trump.
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A Field Guide to the Flags of the Far Right
Antique American flags, obscure foreign ones, and a host of newly designed banners are now common wherever elements of the far right congregate, whether in real life or online. An array of flags dotted the crowds outside the U.S. Capitol on January 6— symbolic weapons that sometimes turned into actual ones: Several rioters used flagpoles to assault police officers or destroy property.
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The FBI Entraps Another Fake Assassin - TomKlingenstein.com
Last month the DOJ announced it had charged a Pakistani national with ties to Iran in connection to a plot to assassinate a politician or U.S. government official on U.S. soil. According to reports, Trump was the target. The suspect, Asif Merchant, entered the country in April and was arrested on July 12 as he prepared to leave the country. It appears that Merchant was the Iranian threat the Secret Service was briefed on before the July 13 rally in Butler, PA. The FBI arranged his entry into the U.S. According to an August Twitter post from Fox correspondent Bill Melugin, Merchant “was admitted into the U.S. via parole for ‘significant public benefit’ when [Customs and Border Patrol] encountered him at the airport in [Texas] in April after he flew in from overseas.” The sponsor of his parole, Melugin reported, “was the FBI’s Dallas office, for ‘security interests.’”
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Tina Peters, Former Colorado County Clerk, Sentenced to 9 Years in Prison - The New York Times
ina Peters, the former clerk of Mesa County, Colo., was sentenced on Thursday to nine years in prison after being found guilty in August of tampering with voting machines under her control in a failed attempt to prove that they had been used to rig the 2020 election against former President Donald J. Trump. At a hearing in Grand Junction, Colo., Judge Matthew D. Barrett scolded Ms. Peters sternly from the bench, telling her he had imposed the severe penalty because she had repeatedly advanced false claims about Mr. Trump’s defeat and in so doing become a celebrity among those who denied that he lost the race.
The sentence was the first to be handed down against a local election official found liable for security breaches of voting machines made by Dominion Voting Systems. After Mr. Trump’s defeat to Joseph R. Biden Jr., pro-Trump activists across the country sought to gain access to Dominion machines, hoping to prove they had been used in a plot to flip votes from Mr. Trump to Mr. Biden.
At trial, Ms. Peters was convicted of helping an outsider — Conan Hayes, a former professional surfer turned technology wizard — to gain unauthorized access to one of Mesa County’s Dominion machines in May 2021. Once Mr. Hayes got into the machine, he was able to capture county passwords and sensitive data about Dominion’s proprietary software that showed up three months later at an event questioning the results of the election hosted by Mike Lindell, the founder of the bedding company MyPillow, who is a prolific purveyor of election lies.
Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security
External Security / Militaria / Diplomania
World
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Hamburg train station platforms closed over suspected Marburg cases
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EU: Definition of "potential terrorists" opens door to broad information-sharing
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UK will give sovereignty of Chagos Islands to Mauritius
This includes the tropical atoll of Diego Garcia, used by the US government as a military base for its navy ships and long-range bomber aircraft. The announcement, made in a joint statement by the UK and Mauritian Prime Ministers, ends decades of often fractious negotiations between the two countries.
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Alleged Tax Dodger Says It’s a “Legitimate Snail-Farming Operation” – Lowering the Bar
the council says the ground-floor office space at 9 Dale Street is currently empty and the firm renting it should be paying full business rates. The firm and its landlord disagree, saying the space isn’t empty and is being put to an “agricultural use.” Specifically, the space is occupied by fifteen (15) crates each containing at least two (2) snails. So the firm—Snai1 Primary Products 2023 Ltd—says it’s exempt.
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Bhutan's Prime Minister: 'We have to ask ourselves why we want economic growth'